Memories of Lyra's Soildier
by BrooklynRed
Summary: For hundreds of years the Church has been seeking to elimate the Gallivespians, but when a Church Soildier begins to dream of fantastic worlds and a golden girl the little people have one last chance to save themselves. Language and some sexual themes
1. Nightmares

Howdy guys, I have one or two things to say before this story opens. First up, this story will touch on mature themes and may go deeper than that later on (i'll see how it runs) so there is the possibility that certain parts of this may offend. It also implies certain physical eliments about Lyra and Wills relationship which some may dislike. Secondly, I don't own any of the characters aside from the lead character and other characters that may appear later on. Thirdly, please and review with whatever you think that it is pertinant to comment on; I won't be offended and I will reply to every review.

Oh, and having just reread there is swearing in this story. I don;t think its enough to qualify for an M ratingbut give my your thoughts.

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I love that feeling you get when you lie down after a game of rugger. You sit back and feel the cramp slowly leaving your body, every muscle and sinew slowly cooling and unwinding after the tension of the day's activity. Sometimes you can actually feel the injuries here, abstained muscle which twitches with surprising regularity or a twisted ankle which slowly swells beneath the duvet. You slowly slip into your coma with a feeling of utter relaxation.

After a battle, however, it is an utterly different feeling. As I lie down at night I fear the dreams that are to come, the memories that will fill my mind with convulsing hate and violence. My father once said I was warrior, that I was born to kill and that I should accept my nature; to a certain extent I often think that he was correct. I have few abilities, but fighting has always come naturally to me; I've done it since I was a child and never stopped since, but I will never accept it as my unavoidable nature.

The dreams of violence are coming more and more often now; I can't escape from them anymore. I dream of armoured bears and subtle knives, of the last battle at the end of the universe and golden children. I wake in cold sweats and I feel a mewing at the very heart of my being. Who are these people who haunt my dreams? I have never been the imaginative sort and yet such visions now follow my every step. I try to banish them but I can't, whenever I lose concentration they return once more and fill my mind with death.

I haven't told the Chaplain yet. I dare not, for admitting to such cowardice would open me up to accusations of possession and heresy. I would be accused of letting the abominations into my mind, of opening myself to the little people and their damns spurs.

So, I stay quiet. Most of us scream in our sleep now, remembering battles fought and comrades lost to the dragonflies, so my screams are ignored. If anyone notices my particular moans then I explain it away as the imagination of an old soldier, one who has seen to many battles and lost too many friends. I suspect they think I'm insane, but service to the church is for life and so long as I can wield a gun I am useful.

This night is different; my mind is filled by something else now. The violence is still there, yes, but there i something else which filters through the carnage. A single image of a golden child, sparking through the mist, always just out of reach. No matter how hard I fight, no matter how many times my heart is wrenched from my body by the bizarre ghosts which roam the heavenly battlefield she remains just beyond the fighting. A golden child in summer.

I wake breathless and bloody, my body scored with scratches where I've clawed at my body. I sit upright and look around the barracks, at the bodies of my sleeping comrades. For once it is quiet, the moonlight filtering in through the cross-shaped windows on the walls and casting an eerie glow over the room. The bodies almost seem to glow under the light, making me feel as though I can see through the covers and into the souls of my comrades, each ones aura pitted by the war.

So few. Once we where a battalion, a group of brave young men sent out to try and finally defeat the devils which plague this world. Now we are no more than a company, our numbers decimated by poison and insanity. Some became possessed, others simply begged the little people to kill them, to end the suffering. They knew we were coming, when we marched out a thousand strong from the capital. The little bastards are everywhere, always spying and always watching. They came at us in their thousands, a swarm of dragonflies with poison spurred riders, we killed as many as we could with our clubs and guns, swatting them from the skies and using acid to guns to dissolve through their plate armour. It was too no avail, eventually we were beaten back and they where merciless in victory, killing everyone who fell or surrendered.

Bastards.

I lie back and think of the images that have just flittered through my mind, the images of the cosmic battle at the end of the world. I realise one word is left on the tip of my tongue, a bizarre arrangements of unfamiliar syllables and odd sounds which whirl round my head like a magic spell. Lyra. I repeat it over and over to myself, quietly thinking about what the words meaning. Lyra. I say it out loud. Lyra. I feel like shouting it now, the impossible word from the impossible dream, so I do, almost shaking the rafters with my voice. Lyra. Lyra. Lyra.

Nobody stirs. They are used to such outbursts and screams in peoples sleep, able to sleep through all but the most insane of yells. Above, in the rafters, I can hear the sound of rats scurrying away from the noise, and then the hum of insect wings outside; fleeing the terrifying vibrations my voice caused. Then all is quiet once more, and all is still.

I am an old soldier now, or at least old by the standards of my army and yet that night still lives with me. I don't know why I still remember that night, why it hasn't been expunged from my memory like most of that period, by later and greater events, and yet it still does. It was the first time, to me memory, that I uttered words in that most foreign of languages, and the first time that I knew the name of the person who would become my obsession. I would sleep thinking of that golden face, I would march thinking she was just around the corner and I would pray that God would provide her for me.

One day he would be kind and do so, but for the meantime I would march and fight the little pests which infected my world with their spurs. In doing so, however, I would perhaps learn the truth about the Lord and see things that no man from my world had ever envisaged seeing. I am not, as I have previously stated, an imaginative man. I am slow and dull witted, with little ability with the pen or our language. Thus I can promise to you; this is all true. Every word, every thought is what I saw and experienced. All men, in all worlds, are good.

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Quite a short opening chapter but I just wanted to introduce the character and try and give you an idea of his world. I have about 7,500 words of this done already so hopefully, I'll have C2 up as soon as possible. I do like hearing your thoughts so please give me feedback, it will change the course of the story! Oh, and their are bonus cookies to those who spot the references I've scattered throughout the text.

Thanks,

BrooklynRed


	2. Marching

Right guys, welcome to chapter two of my little story. Thanks for the reviews, Kate, I'm glad you enjoyed the first chapter; hopefully this one will give you a bit more of an idea of whats going on.

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Have you ever marched? I presume not, since conscription ended very few people have experienced the monotony of the forced march, driving forward in time with your comrades to the sound of a piper and drums. It's on odd experience, following the whirl of the pipes and the steady beat of the drums that pound beneath them. You have no idea where your heading, just steadily pushing through countryside ravaged by war and death, a single part of a single unit, all moving in time. You become a machine, your mind drifting away from the body as it is drawn onwards by the beat.

Not that we had the beat. We'd lost our piper and drummer at the first contact with our enemy and thus we'd been unable to march like the machine we should have been. Instead we shambled, out of time down a narrow country road. My mind slowly drifted away, back towards the dreams of the night before. Lyra. I tried to intuit the character and meaning behind that word; was it a name or simply a command? I was certain that it must be the name of the golden girl who haunted me and I began to envisage a life story for her, trying to find clues as to who she was.

Lyra. It didn't sound like any word in our language, the 'l'-syllable being totally unknown to us. Yra sounded somewhat like our word for God, and thus my underused imagination began to drag itself towards that conclusion. Was this girl Gods message to me, these dreams a dire prediction of an unknown future? A future of unlimited war and death, filled with impossible creatures and impossible acts?

As I began to muse over these portents and predictions we were marching deeper into enemy territory, through countryside destroyed by the never ending war. The place was ruined, pock-marked with withered patches of grass where the acid guns had discharged and the small burial humps while our enemy buried their dead. A huge crater lay in the road, evidence of a long-ago artillery barrage while my feet kicked aside hundreds of tiny bones that littered the road.

There was nothing here. This was a dead land, destroyed by the centuries long war between humans and the little people. I don't know how such a war began; the church always told us that it had been going on for eternity, a mere element of the continual battle between good and evil; between Lucifer and the Saints. The little people where sinners who had been recruited by the devil to bring bloodshed to all good Christians, armed with the vile spurs that spat poison into Saints blood.

There was no known protection against such an attack, for they could find the chink in any armour and they had combated our progress in technology, with their own heretical researches. The only effective tool we had found to combat the speed and flexibility of their dragonflies where the acid guns, which spat out an acid so virulent which could eat through a man's torso in a matter of seconds, leading to a painful death. It was, the Cardinals claimed, a fitting death for such heathens; though it ruined the land the battle was fought on and was hugely dangerous for those who wielded the weapon. However the church, in its infinite humanity, judges that the rewards for using such a weapon far outweigh the human cost.

So, we march. We're heading inland, towards the last remaining hideaway of the devils. For years we've been driving them back, destroying their warren and massacring their families till finally we've got them helmed in between the sea and the mountains. We're closing the net now, inch by torturous inch, forcing them into a more confined space in the centre of the country. And then? Who knows, a final battle perhaps, though attacking them in such a confined space would be suicidal in the extreme. There are rumours of another option, some great new weapon which will finally win us the war, but I'm sceptical. Since the acid gun was brought in before I was born there have been no such advances, though many are rumoured. The church would never allow that powerful a destabilising force.

No. It'll be done the old way, though the blood of a million martyrs charging the abominations final hiding place. It would be suicide, but at this point in my life I was willing to sacrifice myself for God and mother church and so had no qualms about that. I saw myself as ascending to heaven, a holy martyr to sit on Gods left side. Little did I know then about the truth about death.

But I digress, and instead I must continue with my tale. We were advancing as a unit down as small narrow path, flanked on one side by a thicket of brambles and on the other by an open field. We where a small group, as previously mentioned only twenty or so of the men had survived the first engagement with our enemy. Thus, we advanced nervously, our guns on our shoulders and we did not heed the Chaplains call that we advance with God in our hearts and minds. We may have been foolish believers but we had no desire to throw away our lives too easily.

So we advanced slowly, watching the field to our left for any sign of the dragonfly riding menace. IT was only because of our paranoia that I survived, positioned closest to the field and facing the other way when the hum of hundreds of tiny wings met our ears. We turned as one and raised our guns, but it was too late. Before we were able to get a volley off they where upon us and once the devils are close you have no chance.

I watched as the swarm slowly came towards me, fighting the urge to turn my back and run into the open field behind. There was no way to survive once you did that, they'd simply swarm all over you and sting you a hundred times with the poison spurs. A few days later, if you were lucky, your bloated body would be found floating down the river and you'd be given a martyrs burials but most of the time there was no body.

Time seemed to slow as they closed on me. I discharged my gun twice, watching the first ball of acid plough into my comrade's back, burning through his chest even as he collapsed due to the stings. My second shot took out a pair of the devils, causing the remains of their dragonflies to twist and slowly fall from the sky. Even as I did this I yelled out the name that had been bestriding my mind all day as a final battle cry.

"Lyra!"

I watched as one of the little abominations leapt from his steed and landed on my shoulder, regarding me quizzically with his bright eyes before plunging his spur though my clothing and into my fleshy shoulder. I could feel the poison enter me and course through my veins like a fire, heading directly for my heart. My entire body was ablaze with the stuff, causing me to scream with pain as I toppled forward to darkness.

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Hope you enjoyed that guys, please review as its always nice to hear your thoughts.

BrooklynRed


	3. Captured

I'm sorry its taken so long to update, had to move stuff back from uni ad so forth. Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed the last chapter and that this one will give you something to mull over. Thanks for the encouragement as well, and I will try to reply to the reviews.

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I awoke in a darkened room, the only light coming from a small window in the roof which projected deep shadows into the room's four bare walls. My limbs where bound and I had a sickening feeling coursing through my body, as though every nerve was trying to retch out some foul bile. My first response was to panic, flapping my arms and legs like a dying fish on the floor in a desperate attempt to free myself from the ropes.

Finally I calmed and began to contemplate my situation. I tried to rearrange fractured memories into some coherent form, leading from the attack by the devils to the little man driving his spur into my hand. I tried to theorise as too where I was; was I dead?

It seemed likely. I could remember the spur being driven in and terrible pain that ran through my whole body as I fell. Nobody survived being stung by the little people, they slaughtered good Christian martyrs indiscriminately and never took any prisoners. And yet I was unwilling to accept that I was dead. Something seemed wrong with that whole hypothesis, the very idea that I had died seemed false. This place was certainly no heaven, and nor was it any sort of hell, it was just a stone room, with a dirty floor and poor lighting. Perhaps the roof was a little low, though in my position it was hard to gauge heights, but it was certainly no worse than the barracks at home. The whole place just seemed too earthy and real to be any sort of afterlife; unless of course life after death was merely a continuation of the life before.

No. I decided, after a moment of consulting the scripture I had memorised in my mind, this was not any sort of afterlife. The church had always been very clear on that point; there was just a heaven and a hell with nothing in between. Therefore, as I was neither in heaven or hell then I must still be alive. I wonder now, with the knowledge I now have, just how many believers awoke in the world of the dead with the very same deduction.

Still. I lay there for an indefinite time, waiting for something happen. I slowly became hungrier, shouting out for someone to come and feed me, or to release the bonds which were now chafing into my skin. From time to time I struggle again and again, but I only manage to weaken my body and cause blood to drip down the ropes from newly opened rents in my skin.

This went on for some time, periodic struggles followed by long moments of rest and thought. I do not know precisely how long I lay in that arid semi-darkness, my eyes straining at every detail of the room, but it was enough to drive me to near-madness. From time to time I hallucinated, watching angels and devils dance in front of my eyes. I suppose I was, for a time, feverish, though I developed no sweat but I don't understand how else I saw such wonderful things.

From time to time I slept fitfully, my eyes seeming to close only for small periods before snapping open again to glare at the twilight. During those patches of sleep, however, the dreams came again, ever more vivid and realistic. I moaned and contorted as they weaved a impenetrable web of worlds around me, the images flashing through my brain like an electric shock.

And what images! I saw it all again, but slower this time and more clearly. I followed the girl, and now I was sure that she was a girl, through numerous worlds more fantastical than any I had ever seen before. I saw her fall in love for the first time, consummate her relationship and then I watched her despair as the two were separated. I could feel her emotions flowing through me, as though we had some sort of bio-symbiotic relationship, I could feel her pain as she watched the boy disappear into another world; separated for eternity.

And then there was the rest that I saw; flights of angels engaging in brutal violence, armoured bears lashing out against spectres. I saw heaven fall to earth, downed by a thousand explosions hurled from human heavy artillery. A swarm of devils fought a regiment of martyrs, the little riders leaping from one victim to another, stabbing and killing each in turn. I saw the dreaming spires of some far off city drift through the fog that surrounded by mind and I watched as these where destroyed by a fleet of bombs dropped from zeppelins.

All these images and more drifted through my mind; images of the past and the future. I could not place each one individually, so quickly did they appear and disappear that I had only time to log their appearance before a new film replaced them. At times I would wake, screaming at the sights which hammered themselves into my skull; images of mere girls being molested and the heartless execution of heretics.

Was this my church?

Finally light entered by life once more, as a small of portal of light opened itself in one of the walls of the room in which I was caged. I had been in the dark for so long that time itself seemed to have slowed and I squinted as the portals light cast a pallid glow over my stone box. Two figures appeared, silhouetted by the light, and they seemed strangely small from my disadvantaged viewpoint. They seemed to be only a foot or so tall and incredibly thin and careworn, so much so that I felt I would be able to break their legs with just my little finger.

They approached me slowly and grew no larger, their features still obscured by a lack of light. Suddenly one leapt forward and landed softly on the curvature between my neck and my shoulder, pressing something sharp into my neck. A soft, cultured voice leaned into my ear and whispered "Don't move, boy."

I stayed as still as I could, not daring to move for fear of the pain that could be visited upon me at any moment. I now knew the predicament I had found myself in, and I cursed myself mentally. It was so obvious that I had been captured and I cast my mind forward in an attempt to steel myself against the tortures that would soon be visited upon me. Who knew what hellish devices the devils where preparing for me in the centre of their lair, ready to rend mind from body in an attempt to wrench information from me.

The other figure stood in front of me and looked down at my stricken head with deep eyes. I still couldn't see much of it, save a few flashes of colour and a general outline of its body shape which stood in front of me like a cat considering its prey. At any moment I expected it to dart forward and drive one of its spurs into my eyes before commanding me to tell it everything I knew about our plans for the final destruction of the vermin. Even when they realised that I knew nothing about any offensive I was sure that they would carry on torturing my bleeding body until I finally died from the horror.

"Kill me." I said it simply but forthrightly, "Kill me now. I don't know anything." I gazed up at the creature's small frame and winched as she let out a small laugh. Her voice was high and cruel, like fractured church bells, and wondered whether it would be the last voice I ever heard. If so it would not be, I suppose, that bad a sound to depart too.

"Now," She said, almost kindly, "Why ever would we want to do that?"

"Because I'm worth nothing to you." I said, "You've taken the wrong man. I don't know anything about the final attack."

She laughed again and this time it was a full throated chuckle. It was an attractive laugh and I wondered for a moment what she looked like, envisaging her with perfect, though petite, physical features. I cursed myself as the lustful thoughts entered my head, seeking to banish them from my traitorous brain. I did not want such hateful, sinful images of the devil to be my last thought as I entered heaven. "So," She said, "There's going to be a final attack?"

I cursed myself mentally again for revealing it. "No." I said, hoping to bluff my way out.

"Don't worry," Her voice was kindly, almost motherly now and thus my image of her changed again, this time presenting her as older and kindly. I desperately tried to remind my fevered brain of her true nature, for all of her acting, "We knew about the planned attack. You haven't betrayed the church or anything, besides, I doubt they tell the ordinary soldiers detailed plans of attack."

"So, why did you capture me?" I couldn't help letting the question slip.

"We don't like killing for no reason," She told me, "And besides, we think that you're far more important than mere intelligence."

This comment sent my brain into overdrive once more, aside from the obvious lie at the beginning of her sentence I struggled to understand quite why I would be important. After all, I was merely a Castrati, one of millions of soldiers who would be sent against the demons to try and win back planet for God and mother church. Maybe she was just saying it too try and lower my guard, but my mind kept harking back to the dreams and how I'd adopted Lyra as my battle cry just before they had struck; was that the reason why they hadn't killed me?

The lady was speaking again and I tuned back in to listen to her, "Now," she was saying, "If you agree not to cause to trouble Tibalt here will get off you and we can clean you up and get you some food. Do you agree?"

I nodded my assent and the man on my shoulder moved away and I felt him slit the bands that had been holding me in place. I slipped forward on unsteady legs and followed the little lady out of the low roofed room. I was bowed and hollow, the skin hanging off flesh starved bones like poorly wrapped paper but at least I had survived.

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Thanks for reading, next chapter should be up in a couple of days, once I find time to write chapter 6. Please keep feeding ideas and thoughts because they really do intrest me and can drive the narrative process. Oh, and as a teaser, Lyra appears in the next cahpter ;)

Thanks,

BrooklynRed


	4. Lyra

Howdy guys, sorry for the long period between updates but I've been a bit busy writing some of my own, non-fiction work as well as actually trying to hold down a job. Anyways, I've finally got round to typing up the next bit and this is straight from the press and not properly beta'd so I apologise for any mistakes. Just looking back the last chapter it did end a little melo-dramatically didnt it?

Anyways, we've got quite a few following this story on alert now, which is great, but I would ask once more if you could review. it'd be awsome to get to know your thoughts...

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They took me down minute corridors, lit only by a few lightning lamps that hung bare and unshod from the concrete ceiling. I had to hunch my back to make progress, virtually crawling at some points where the ceiling fell to a few feet away from the floor. Fortunately I am not a tall man and thus I was able to avoid that indignity, though the journey was still uncomfortable.

I could see more of the Lady now, though the harsh light did throw deep shadows over her pointed features. It was hard to tell how old she was as I knew little about how the little people aged and their physiology but if I was to try and transpose a human age upon her I would have judged her to be in her mid-twenties. Her face was still unblemished by wrinkles and her blond hair lay about her shoulders in a curled wreath that resembled the halos of the saints.

Accompanying her was the gentleman who had leapt upon my shoulder to prevent any chance of escape. He had a far more formal baring, his back straight and his grey hair clipped short around a rapidly balding crown. He had the manner of a man who had spent his whole life in the military, short, clipped and efficient. One could not imagine this gentleman relaxing or spending an hour in sloth when there was still work to do and that maniacal desire for work appeared to have aged him prematurely, his face was tired and wrinkled to the extent that he looked to be on deaths door despite his healthy and unravaged body.

Both little people where armed, carrying rapiers at their belts as well as the natural spurs on their ankles. Indeed, in dress they seemed positively quaint to my eyes, dressed in clothes that seemed more suited to mass than an interrogation and yet they carried about themselves an elegant menace, as though it was the most natural thing to kill in finery.

Finally, after innumerable corridors and blows to the head we finally turned from a careworn corridor through a sheet metal door into a larger room which had evidently been prepared for my arrival. Again it had unshod concrete walls, except for a speaking trumpet which lay embedded in the far wall. Three seats sat in the centre of the room, two smaller ones for the little people and a single, larger one for myself.

Throughout our whole the trip the pair had not exchanged a word with each other or with me; I had simply followed their path and attempted to avoid injuring myself too much on the walls. Finally, as I was motioned to seat myself by the gentleman the Lady declaimed to turn and speak to me. "I am afraid," She said, her exquisite voice, "that the journey was not kind to you. These halls are not designed for men and have only the height to let through a single dragonfly. However, no harms seem to have been done."

She clapped her hands together than and sat in her chair and regarded me, "Do you want some food?" She asked, "of course you do. Tibalt, could you get the young man some food?" The gentleman nodded and moved to the speaking trumpet at the corner and spoke urgent and hushed tones into it.

We sat in silence for a while, occasionally exchanging platitudes as she sought to find out more about me. She asked of my parentage, unknown, and how long I'd been in the army but in the end we both lapsed into silence. I was still torn between engaging with her and keeping my vow of silence. It was a holy vow and I knew that eternal damnation would await should I break it; but surely God wouldn't mind so long as I didn't divulge important information; we were also taught to keep ourselves alive so long as we didn't harm to war effort, after all.

The food arrived and I gorged myself on it. I hadn't eaten for some time and it was better than any food I'd tasted before, a fantastic mix of meat and vegetables that was totally unlike the reheated rations that I'd always eaten before. The lady ate a smaller meal off her knees, somehow still managing to look elegant despite her having to bend over the meal in order to use her sticks.

"Now," She said once I'd eaten, her voice taking on the business tone of a songbird, "I suppose you'd like to know quite why you're here." I nodded my assent, "well, as I said we try not to kill those who we don't have too but I suspect that you know that's not why we've brought you here. Though we try not to kill those who've surrendered, your unit had evidently not done that."

I nodded again, and she looked at me despairingly. "Who's Lyra?" She said simply.

I thought about the ethics of responding. Would I be breaking my vow if I told her about my dreams? Could my dreams be a matter of great military importance? I doubted it, and yet the little people appeared interested in them, though I couldn't see any reason why. Maybe they just wanted to know what this foreign word that I'd cried out had been; wondering if it was some sort of code.

"Lyra is," I said, stuttering slightly, "A girl."

The Lady nodded and smiled, "really," She said and pulled out a small notebook from her blouse. She wrote a few notes and then looked up at me once more. "And how do you know this girl?" She asked, "I wasn't aware that Castrati like yourself where allowed to meet those of the opposite sex."

She was entirely correct, those of us who where orphans given to the military where prevented from meeting those of the opposite sex if at all possible, for fear of sin and corruption. I knew such eternal beings existed, of course, but I had never really encountered one at close level. "She's in my dreams." I said simply.

The Lady took another few notes in the golden pad, "And in these dreams, what does she do?"

"She travels." I said, "She betrays a friend and then she sees and does wonderful miracles." I could think of no better way to describe her acts than miracles, so deeply entrenched into my mind was the churches iconography.

"What sort of miracles?" The Lady's tone was abrupt now, interrogational, spurting out questions as soon as I'd answered the previous one.

"She lets the dead out of their world," I said, trying to recall the dreams, "And she fights the false god, and she falls in love with a boy from another world. There's so many wondrous things that she does, separating herself from her soul, befriending witches and mastering Subtle Knives that I cannot tell you them all." The Lady nods and looks at me oddly, checking and rechecking her notebook. Finally she looks at me again.

"How long have you been having these dreams?" She asked, "A month?"

I nodded, "Roughly that."

She smiles at me like a rainbow again and I am taken aback once more by her subtle, homely beauty. "Right," She says, her voice returning to that songbird pitch, " I think that's enough for now. We're preparing a room for you for you to sleep in, but until then you'll have to stay in here. If you need anything just use the speaking trumpet and we'll get it too you right away."

She made to leave the room with her companion when I finally got the courage to ask her the question that I'd been wanting too since I'd first heard her voice. "What's your name?" I asked.

She turned and gave me a grin that lit up the room and my face, "Oh," she said, "why, its Lyra." And with that she was gone, sweeping from the room to leave me sitting stunned.

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Humm, like the twist (or something similar)? Please R&R guys, ta.


	5. Escape

Right, I was siezed by inspiration last night wrote up cahpter 7 straight, and its going to be a great great chapter with a great great twist. But anyways, heres chapter 5 to wet your appatite for the next two... Hope your all still enjoying it and havn't give up on me yet.

Please R/R, ta chucks

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Time passed like a slug crawling along a leaf, constantly beguiling and fascinating and yet oddly similar as it passed. I shuttled between the concrete room for discussion with the Lady and other interrogators and to a sleeping chamber every night. It was a pleasant place to sleep, far superior to anything that I had slept in before but nothing compared to the silks in which I not rest, but other than these two rooms I went nowhere else, except a confusing medley of corridors through which I was ferried. Still, it was not a bad life and I preferred it to the brutality and nialism of the army and thus I was contented.

The interrogation sessions, or, as I preferred to term them, the discussions we had were pleasant talks with either the Lady or another, random, gentleman. Mostly they centred on my dreams, and while they were also prone to straying onto other subjects, the Lady kept them firmly on me and my life, revealing little about herself. My questions about her name and life where firmly rebuffed and, though she had no problem about talking about her peoples history, any interest I expressed in the current situation was also ruled out as a topic of conversation.

Over time, and I do not know how long this went on for, I began to look forward to our sessions and even obsessing about them. What would I say to her? What would I wear? Just how would it go and would I have any more revelations for her? I began to covert her presence, trying to make our conversations go on longer and committing her features to my brain and replaying them over and over during the nights. Unbeknown to me I was slowly falling into the trap which had been set millennia ago by Adam; I was falling in love with the Lady.

At the same time the dreams where coming more frequently, my mind entering Lyra's realm almost every single night. They were slower now and more clear, though I still had no control over what I saw. Sometimes they repeated scenes which I had seen before, or showed them from different angles or different minds. The scenes of battles and death where coming less frequently, and instead they were focusing on other, more general moments in the girls life. Frequently I was taken to the land where the wheeled cows lived, a beautiful world where I watched the young girl fall in love in front of me. It would have been beautiful, where it not for the desire that I felt as I watched her first intimate encounters unfurl before me, unable to act or escape from the obscene joy.

But despite this I was content. Not, perhaps, happy as such but certainly contented with life and my place in it. I was comfortable, safe and satisfied with everything around me, it was a huge step up from my previous life as a soldier. I still felt pangs of guilt from my training as I divulged more secrets about my past life and I occasionally fell to my knees begging for god's forgiveness at giving up so much to the devils but such moments came less and less often and I become more and more secure in my new life.

And then it all changed. It was inevitable, I suppose, I had known that the little people where slowly being defeated and yielding their bases one by one to the power of the church. These events had not just been propaganda, for hundreds of years the church had been winning the war and as more men swarmed over the earth the little peoples defeat had hastened. Men breed like rabbits, churning out one or two children a year while the little people, with their short periods of maturity, where unable to match those birth rates. Thus they lost the slow battle of numbers and as the churches armaments improved they lost ground further.

Even so, it was a surprise to me when my happy life as a captive was disturbed by the distant rumble of artillery one day. I was lying in my bed when I first heard the familiar rumble of thunder. I knew the sound from my days as a soldier, the low roar like a thousand wasps running over the ground and the gentle shaking of everything around me. I recognised it as the sound of a creeping barrage, intended to destroy surface level demonic instillations and to force the little people into their bases underground where they could be easily destroyed.

I dared to venture outside of my room, finding the door unlocked. The base was a melee of little people rushing to find their positions, dragonflies buzzing down the hallways and those who were not intended to fight attempting to flee the base. I watched for a moment and then crept back inside my room, pulling my pillow over my head in an attempt to hide myself from the noise. I did not want to leave this existence, knowing that my doom would soon be upon me. I had abandoned god and mother church in my talks with the Lady and for that I would not be forgiven. The very sin of being captured would have had me killed for fear of possession, but my betrayal would have guaranteed me a painful and fiery death as pre-emptive penance.

As I lay there, cowering and fearing that I would soon meet the Lord and be judged the door was quietly pushed open and footsteps made their quiet way towards me. I did not notice the entrance, such was my pre-occupation with my imminent death, and I did not look up until I felt a tender arm snake its way around my neck and I looked up into the Lady's thin, sorrowful face with its golden halo. This was the first time we had ever touched and her slender contact sent a jolt through me like lightning, as though the dreams which had preoccupied my night time thoughts had been realised.

This close she no longer seemed so small, though she still only stood at a foot or so high and her arm barely reached around my neck. I could have swallowed her head in my yearning mouth had I dared attempted to kiss her and her face still seemed remarkably small and well-formed for one so small. She raised her other arm and caressed my cheek, wiping an unknown tear away. "Don't worry." She whispered in the ear, "It'll be okay." I nodded my assent to that thought, trying to conceal my desire for her touch.

"We have plenty of time." She said and slowly led me from the bed and told me to dry my tears and prepare to leave. "I think," She said, "We have an awful lot to talk about and not an awful lot of time to do it." She led me by the hand, like one would do as small child and I trailed along behind her as she led me through corridors I had not seen before. The military action I had noted previously had calmed down and instead the pair of us where in the stream of refugees who looked at me with great worry.

We were, I discovered later, following the course of a single escape tunnel that led from one hidden base to another and from there onto the capital of the Little Peoples lands, a city into which no big person had ever ventured. I do not know how long the journey took, as I have previously stated the underground nature of my adventure meant that I counted my days by sleeps instead of by the rotation of the sun and the moon, but I would guess that the journey to little over six days to make.

For the whole of it there were just the two of us, travelling slowly along sunken tunnels with the rest of the refugees. We talked for much of the time and slowly she began to reveal more of herself, about her family's history, about where her unusual name had come from and about the lands of the little people. Most of all she began to explain the world in a way that I had never imagined, explaining the source of my dreams and the complex mathematics that lay behind the worlds operations.

We grew emotionally closer as well, with the two of us beginning to strike up a real bond that one could almost have pronounced as love, if we had not been so cautious. At night we would begin by lying apart before moving closer together as sleep drew closer until she rested her head in the crook between my head and chest, her slender body running down my stomach. The first night this happened I did not sleep, so fraught with worry was I that I would crush her when I rolled over. But as this happened more frequently I began to forget such childish worries and revelled in her very presence, sleeping better than I had ever done before.

It was then, of course, as my hopes grew higher that my real adventure began.

* * *

Bit of a filler chapter I'm afraid but I had to move the story along somehow. Not sure how long it'll be till the next one, I cant really afford to spend 2 hours solid typing too open, but anyways, enjoy!

Kate; Glad you enjoyed the last one, it was one of my favourates to write as well

James


	6. Generals

Okay Kate, if you insist.... I'm off to Italy for a couple of weeks now though, so this'll be the last update for a bit.

Please R/R

* * *

How can I describe the city of the little people? To this day I only know it by the name which the Church had given it, the City of Devils and I suppose that will have to do. I have never had the capabilities to learn the language of the Gallivespians, and I never spent enough time in their company to even pick up even a few words. Thus their methods of communication will have the remain a mystery to us, though I will say that when I heard them communicate it seemed to be via a series of clicking noises of different pitches.

As we advanced towards the city of devils I noted a few things about our fellow refugees. There were very few of them and consisted almost exclusively of children, mothers and wounded. There where no old people in our column, which did not immediately strike me as odd as the only elderly that I had ever seen where the priests and generals of the church. I had always assumed that this was because of the stresses of office, a sacrifice that God forced them to take in order to command, later I would discover this was false.

We approached the city slowly, my size meaning we were frequently stopped at various checkpoints and bases on the route where the Lady had to barter my way through. Whenever I asked where we were heading she never answered me straight, giving me platitudes or misdirection instead. "We're going," She would say, "to safety."

If only that where true, for one of the big people the City of Devils was the least safe place in the world. Everywhere I walked, bending my back to avoid banging my head of low roofs, I was met with aggression and hatred. Wounded soldiers glared at me on the refugee trail while others attempted to attack me or rant about the evils of humanity till the Lady removed them.

Walking through the ruined countryside, I felt myself agreeing with them. The more time I spent with the little people the less animosity I felt towards them, the less the doctrine that had been imposed upon me during my youth affected my thoughts and behaviour. I slowly came to sympathise with them , no longer viewing them as demons but instead as people who had been shielded from Gods light and who the church had wrongly victimised.

Finally, and not without incident, we arrived in the City of the Devils, a rustic mix of fine architecture and shanty houses made of corrugated iron. Once it must have been a fine city of marble, the grand buildings testimony to a time before the war when the little people had lived in peace. Now, however, it was a beautiful shambling mix of bomb craters, military installations and the jerry rigged houses of the refugees. It must have been in constant crisis, attempting to feed far more people than it had been designed for and having to cope with the effects of war and more refugees flooding in.

This was, I soon realised, what a city looked like on the verge of defeat. The Churches propaganda had been true; we really where winning the war. The little people had been boxed into a small area of the country and where gradually starving to death as their territory was seized inch by torturous inch. Their desire to keep their people alive was destroying them; too many mouths to feed without enough land to grow crops in. Everywhere I looked I saw people who looked on the verge of collapse, tiny bones protruding from emasculated skin. I wondered how long they could survive now, with the Church closing in on every side.

The lady led me through thin streets, barely wide enough for me to fit my frame through them. We moved towards the largest building in the city, surrounded by defensive emplacements and craters. It was burning slightly, its east wing having been struck by a shell just hours before we arrived. This was the headquarters of the Gallivespian war effort, where they had been directing operations for hundreds of years.

When we entered I found a hive of activity, hundreds and hundreds of little warriors scurrying around, carrying out minute tasks which where presumably essential for the continuation of the war. My height again caused notice as I was led into downstairs into a bunker, having to crawl through narrow corridors on my way downwards. Finally we stopped next to wooden door, which led into a slightly larger room. I was still hunched into the small space, my body cramping up as I hauled myself though a door which was barley wide enough to fit my torso. When inside I found I had to lie on the floor in order to avoid smashing my head of the ceiling as I rested.

The lady followed me into the room, accompanied by two other gentlemen in flamboyant apparel, whose heads appear to being held on by huge ruffs. They each pulled up a miniature chair and seated themselves in front of myself, regarding me with suspicious eyes while the Lady chose to stand behind of them, giving me some reassurance.

All was silent, before one of the men turned and began to speak to the Lady in their tongue. She responded sharply with a long monologue, and too this day I do not know what they said, and then they turned back to me and took another long look into my eyes. They looked to be harsh men, with grey skin and dark hair, each armed with a long sword at their sides. Their colourful clothing merely offset harshly with their evident harshness and greyness, making their bodies seem like pits of evil within a colourful exterior.

"Adam," The Lady said, addressing me by my first name, "This is General Oedipus." She motioned her hand towards the grey man on the left, who gave me a curt nod, "and General Othello." She motioned again and thus one stood and bowed, giving me a smile which quickly faded back into the dull nature of his face. "They are both senior Generals in the intelligence service of the Gallivespian war effort and we have something very important to discuss with you."

One of the generals turned back to her and made a few sharp clicks to the Lady, who responded in a similar fashion. "I'm afraid," She said, "That one of my friends does not feel that this is a good idea. He feels our," she paused here to consider her next word carefully, "our friendship has clouded my judgement and caused me to place more trust in you than is wise. However, I feel that we have no choice but to confide in you and seek your assistance."

I was struggling to understand her now, to understand her sudden change of character from the woman who I had grown to love on our journey to the city and the colder, harsher creature that sat before me now. She had been warm then, kind with her compliments and affectionate in a limited way, now she seemed to regard me as merely an ally, someone to help her in her war.

She looked at me again and fixed me with a warmer smile, having been checking with the generals about her actions once more. "Now," she said, "We have much to tell you about where your dreams have been coming from and just why you are so important. Much of this will come as a surprise to you and it'll challenge all that the church taught you since you've been born."

As I have stated before, I am not an intelligent man, so what I will now tell is all true, as far as I can remember it. It may strike you as impossible and it may challenge everything we've been taught about God and the way the universe works but it is all true. I've seen it with my own eyes, and it matched the Lady's explanation to word, from the world of the dead to the true nature of the one we've called God.

As I lay there, my shoulders brushing against the roof of the bunker the Lady slowly destroyed my preconceptions about the world one by one. She told me a story; a great story about life and loss and about the child with whom she shared her name and how she had changed the universe. She told me about the great battle at the edge of universe, about how a great man had risen to try and fight god himself and had given his life in order to triumph...

And then she told of Lyra, the woman she had been named after, who had left her world as a mere child on a great adventure, and ended up proving herself as the greatest of all women. Finally the disparate dreams made sense to me, I understood the immense pain and sorrow I had felt as I watched the girl carry her friends body into the northern lights, I realised just what she had been doing in the land of the dead and I finally understood the immense significance of the erotic scene that had so often been laid out before me.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, the Lady stopped and looked at me with baleful eyes. "My grandfather," she said, "was the Chevalier Tialys who, along with the Lady Salmakia, served to protect the two children on their journey. He died attacking a cliff ghast at the final battle, and it was determined that to remember his sacrifice I would be named after the one he'd protected; Lyra, which translates as the child of gold in our language."

"We lost a lot of troops fighting to help Lord Asriel, and ever since then we've been on the back foot in the war against the church. We simply can't replenish our numbers, we're unable to hold back the advance of your church and your barbarianism. That's why we need you to help us." I looked blankly at her, unable to comprehend just what she was asking me. I uttered a few amazed sentences, unsure as to how to respond to this; could I really betray my people for this woman?

"There has always been a prophecy," The Lady continued, "which has been passed down through the generations of our people. We have never taken it seriously, because we are rational and it seems insane to draw policy from what a woman dreams hundreds of years ago, but we kept it as part of our culture. It states that one day our people will be on the verge of defeat and a golden child will step forward from another world to save us, to carry out her final task before death."

"We never believed anything like this before now, never thought that there were other worlds until the Angels told us about Asriel and never thought that we would be defeated." She paused here, as if to muster her thoughts into coherent order and work out just what she was going to say. "however, it seems to me that we have no choice now but to trust the prophecy. Lyra must be the child of light and she must come forth to save our people. The prophecy does not say how she will achieve this, but it does say that a Soldier of God will find her and bring her too us. I believe that you are this soldier and I would beg you to try and save us." She looked at me despairingly again, her evident belief shining from her eyes.

I will admit that I did not know how to respond to this proposition, torn between helping the Lady and following the vows I had taken to my God. The story she had told had shaken me, confirming my dreams and making me question my faith in the Lord. I sat in silence for some moments, trying to work out the implications of this message and proposal. If I was to do as she asked I would have to betray not only my God but also my people and my species to help our mortal enemies, all for a woman with whom I could never have a physical relationship.

I looked up into her begging eyes again and then into the colder, hard ones of the two generals who sat next to her. I thought of what I had seen of the little people so far, and how much church had ravaged the land we lived on. The little peoples seem honourable and kind, while the church did not care for my life and had mutilated me so that I could never feel the passion which I had watched Lyra enjoy. What did I owe them other than pain and hellish nightmares?

I looked towards the Lady and slowly nodded, before responding with a stronger affirmative. "Yes." I said, simply, "I'll do it, but only if you promise me that you won't wipe out my people in return."

She turned and clicked at the generals, who responded in a similar fashion. "They still do not trust you," she told me, "we have been at war with your people for so long that many Gallivespians see humanity only as evil and untrustworthy, not even worthy of an honourable death. I, on the other hand, know that you are not all like that and I believe that you can be trusted to aid our people."

She had another conversation with the two generals, who then both stood and left the room with a bare salute in my direct, leaving me alone with the lady. She immediately came aver towards me and rested her fragile arm on my chest, "we'll try and move you to somewhere more comfortable soon." She said, "And then we'll leave as soon as possible." She looked at my again and then stepped towards me and planted a kiss on my cheek, her tiny lips fluttering against my childish wisps of hair.

Then she smiled and left the room, leaving me to stew in my own thoughts and premonitions of what the future was to hold. Later, much later, when all the thought had exhausted me I finally fell to sleep and was visited by the image of the golden girl, standing just out of reach and smiling at my confusion. She seemed to be trying to say something, trying to reach out through the void to my incoherent form, but then she was gone and the nightmares of battle returned.

* * *

And now we get into the bulk of the story, the quest if you will. Hope you enjoyed it and all feedback is appreciated...

James


	7. Dreaming

Sorry this took so long, been a bit busy recently...

Enjoy!

* * *

We left a day later, creeping through the countryside like rats, fearful of being discovered by the Church. If we where found, all would be lost. If a platoon from the Church found a single soldier like myself wandering along, back towards Church lines then they would almost certainly declare me a deserter and shoot me on the spot. If they found the Lady with me then I would be declared a traitor and taken to a far, far worse fate.

Thus we moved slowly south, creeping through the weeds and brambles in the dead of night and hiding in the great scars left by artillery during the day. Time after time we lay together, holding our breath as a rekey ambled past, knowing that our trip could end at any moment. We slept in the single sleeping bag that we had brought and lived on minimal rations for fear of running out of food. All the time the world rang with the distant boom of artillery and gunfire, reminding us that the cause which we sought to protect was in daily danger of extinction; by the time we returned it was possible that the war would be over and the Lady would be the last of her kind.

We were heading south, towards a great expanse of marshland from which the little people had detected bizarre radiation bursts a few weeks ago. I had been passing the marshland at the same point, and it was then that I'd first begun to receive my dreams. They still came nightly, but now they were clearer and I had some degree of control over them. They still ended at the same point, however, with the two lovers (Lyra and will, as I had not been informed) parting at the end of the Universe, their love severed at the sweetest moment. I still awoke crying when that dream visited me, such as the anguish of their separation.

As we walked the Lady told me all she knew about the girl who haunted my dreams. She knew little, only the stories that had been relayed to her from fragmented sources; she knew of the trip to the world of the dead, for example, but had little idea of what had been done there. Meanwhile I had all of the experiences and ideas of what they had done but no back-story to it. Together we began to assemble the visions into a coherent narrative; trying to work out exactly where each scene went will we had an idea of the course of Lyras life during that period.

I do not know exactly how long the journey south took, and I could not relay exact moments too you in any way. As I have previously stated I am old now and my memory is fragmented and poor, certain incidents standing in stark relief to others. Besides, I was not well educated at that stage and so any attempt to try and tell you about the higher things the Lady talked to me about would be useless. In return she bid me to tell her about my own life in the Churches service and so I relayed my schedule of mass and evensong, the rising glory that you felt during a great preacher and the way you'd eat your gruel with a happy smile on your face, thanking God for the gift of food. I told her about the exquisite paint that you felt during training and the far more gruesome pain that I had felt during my castration.

I can remember clearly her reaction to that last detail, the way she had blanched and how her face had turned white. She stammered strongly, "Well, we had always suspected..." and then her normally eloquent voice fell silent. We walked in silent before she suddenly fell into a rant of the evils of her church, provoked entirely by my disclosure. We never talked of the matter again, even in the dead of night when she pressed herself closer to me as through seeking some sort of response. I never felt anything.

Finally we reached the marshes and began to pick our way through the wasteland. Once there had been a great battle here and its scars still tore across the landscape. Every so often you would find your foot buried in the rotting corpse of a dead soldier, his body floating just beneath the mist that circled the ground and you would quickly withdraw, trying to remove the incident from your memory. The great dragonflies of the Gallivespians soared across the landscape, the survivors having formed some sort of a colony after the battle. I asked the Lady why she hadn't brought a dragonfly with her and she showed me the little larvae all Galliverspians carried with them, saying that she could rear one within a few hours if needs be.

We blundered on, unsure of what we were looking for and with no real sense of direction. Somewhere in the marsh our route to another world lay and we had no means of finding it, my dreams giving us little guidance as to where this doorway lay. WE spent days looking, trying to notice any minute differences between patches of grass which lay mere inches apart.

In the end we stumbled through it, the lady suddenly noticing that the sun was beaming down from a different angle. The world still looked the same, the marshes still coated the horizon but the sun had moved from the left of our field of vision to the right, moving all the shadows from one angle to another. WE looked back and could see the extraordinarily subtle outside of a doorway in the air, an oval where the shadows ran in different directions. Had it not been for the Lady's observation I have no doubt that we would have simply stumbled onwards for eternity, not noticing that the world had changed.

That night I had the strongest and strangest dream I yet experienced. I was placed in a scene I had never seen before, immobile and facing a large oak door. I watched as it opened and an elderly gentleman walked through, followed by two official looking guards dragging a young woman with them. The gentleman sat himself behind a large, polished desk and they placed the woman in a wooden chair, facing him. She still struggled but was unable to escape their grip.

The wall behind the man was lined with books, indicating to me that he was a scholar of some sort. I then noticed the animals which had followed each of the four people inwards, a black raven seating itself upon the man's shoulder, a pair of wolfhounds following each of the two guards and a bizarre, pine Marten which leapt into the girl's arms as she sat. The old man opened up a large book on his desk and picked up a pen, writing a few notes on the vellum pages. Finally he looked up at the girl.

"Are you Lyra Belaqua?" He asked, his voice deep and laboured.

"Yes." The woman responded, her blond hair glistening in the sun.

"Lyra, I am here to inform you of the charges brought against you by the blessed Church of Jesus Christ. You have been charged with treason, heresy and atheism over the course of several years. As a fellow of Jordon Collage you have requested that you be tried here, rather than in the civil courts as is your right. How do you plead?"

I could not see the girls face as she heard the charges but her defiant voice told me all that i wanted to know. "Not guilty." She said, her voice ringing clear around the stone flagged room.

The old man behind the desk smiled at her and nodded, his pen scratching over the parchment once more. "I thought you might." His face then turned serious again, betraying no expression of sympathy or condemnation, "therefore you will be tried in the scholars court within the next three weeks in front of a jury of your peers. If you are found guilty you will be sent down from Jordon Collage and be liable to prosecution in the civil courts, who may punish you in any way they see fit. I gather that the punishment for your crime in those courts is death. Until then you may remain under house guard in your quarters at Jordon. May god have mercy on your soul." With that he stood and left through a side door, leaving the guards to escort the lady out through the main.

Then something extraordinary happened, an incident which is still etched onto my memory all these years later. AS the woman was turned around and moved towards the exit her eyes met mine. A look a surprise crossed her face, followed by a grin of excitement and she mouthed a couple of words at me; "Help me, Will."


End file.
